Take your tastebuds, and your friends, to the eastern Mediterranean

Two Kiwi women — Clare Hindmarsh and Michelle Arsan — get together with Turkish men Zeki Kizilata and Ali Arsan. The Turks come from the part of that country that faces the islands of Chios and Lesbos, one of them owns a beautiful Turkish wooden boat that he takes cruising around the Greek islands. (The men in this part of the world are also the ones who sit in the coffeehouses discussing food all day.)

The four have embraced the eastern Mediterranean tradition of true hospitality to all guests and they all have plenty of experience running eateries in New Zealand (think Caravanserai, which opened in 1989 and the Mezze Bar (1992), not to mention Tasca and Carmen Jones), so their hospo pedigree is immaculate.

This brings me to Lok&amacr;nta, which is the Turkish word for a local eating establishment, not necessarily flash, its reputation defined by the quality of its food, which is traditional household cookery. The sort of food Clare would have eaten on her extensive travels through Turkey (the experience changed her life!) and the sort of food Zeki and Ali (above, from left) were brought up with and what they eat when they return home.

Asian restaurants have been selling us good unadorned household food for decades. To Europeans it seems exotic, because it is so different to Western food. But it is only relatively recently that we have been able to visit European restaurants and eat the same sort of food.

Some people don’t get the food at Lok&amacr;nta, thinking of it in terms of the European food that has become mainstream. Forget about that and appreciate its menu as ethnic Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean food. This is the food Zeki watched his mother and aunts cook (always outside on a fire, and it had to be good because everyone was very critical) for the farm workers on their property in Turkey. This is generous Mediterranean food with clear robust flavours and no unnecessary garnish.

Though you might have tasted menu items like tzatziki before, if it features on the Lok&amacr;nta menu it is the real thing. Not that all the food is every day, there are choices such as wedding chicken — a special occasion dish of whole roasted baby chicken stuffed with rice, pistachios, carrots and currants, served with saffron jus — the sort of dish you would eat at an Aegean wedding.

The baklava is given a modern twist and stuffed with nuts and coconut, served on its end like a diagonal-cut sushi roll with fresh oranges and housemade crystallised orange peel. Last time I was there they served the best, lightest revani (yoghurt and semolina syrup cake) that I have ever tasted.

They do a great small plate of chicken morsels with a very traditional creamy sauce of ground walnuts. This is the sort of European food I could only read of when I was a young chef.

Perhaps what I really love about Lok&amacr;nta, which ties in with good food and generous hospitality, is that there is no pretention about the food or the place. I go there not because I want to get something weird and wonderful, but because I can be assured of a good dinner. Take your tastebuds, and your friends, to the eastern Mediterranean and have dinner at Lok&amacr;nta. Put everything into the middle of the table and share it. Excellent.

Oodles of depth and flavour

You know how you read about new restaurants, run along in the mad dash to be fashionable and fabulous and are usually disappointed? Not this time. A restaurant has opened in Richmond Rd, Auckland called Lok&amacr;nta – Turkish/Greek home cooking. Owned by Clare & Zeki Kizilata and friends.

This is real food, beautifully cooked with oodles of depth and flavour and they don’t put a step wrong. Simple decor, lovely service, calm kitchen. I almost put my head down on the table and wept but then the Greek wine arrived and I revived.

Stroll on down to your outstanding new neighbourhood bistro

For a long time now, we’ve kept one eye on the quaint set of shops on Richmond Road. Having been everything under the sun, from Indian to Italian and back again, finally, the space has become something worthy of our excitement. It’s not often you come across a new neighbourhood local with the bones to withstand the test of time, but thanks to Lokānta, we can finally say we have.

Helmed by two dynamic husband and wife duos — Clare and Zeki Kizilata, and Michelle and Ali-Fuat Arsan — the small local eatery is the epitome of honest, homemade cooking. As a child growing up on the western coast of Turkey looking out to the Greek Islands, Head Chef Zeki would come back from fishing trips — out for days at a time — and cook deliciously flavoursome fare for his family, impressing the women at a time when only women of the household would cook. Since then, he has honed his skills in traditional Mediterranean cuisine, combining flavours from his hometown in Turkey with eastern Greek cuisine, particularly flavours from the islands.

The menu is concise and designed to be shared around a big table. Beware that every item sounds tantalising which makes it incredibly hard to settle on any one dish. We knew we could judge them upon tasting the chargrilled octopus — a delicacy that’s notoriously difficult to get right — with fava puree, rocket and lemon. It was simple and cooked to utter perfection. In between small plates and mains, you’d be silly not to sample their flatbreads like the Lahmajun with ground meats and onion topped with rocket, fresh tomato, and a good squeeze of lemon. With only four mains to choose from, you can’t go past the fresh melt in your mouth day’s catch (pictured is the swordfish) served on a large skewer with potato flats, rocket, olives, capers and drizzled with a white wine cream sauce. Meanwhile, the Aegean island goat braise with barley risotto, wilted watercress, and pan juices has already become a favourite dish in the short time they’ve been open.

You’ll also be pleased to know that their wine list is sensational for a petite bistro including Greek varieties for those who want to keep in theme, as well as Turkish beer. However, if you’re feeling adventurous, we suggest you opt for the Santorini martini made with gin, vermouth, quince syrup and orange peel. Food made with this much love has likely only ever been experienced when galavanting around the Aegean first-hand, making this restaurant a true gem.

If you’re looking for a place to herd your nearest and dearest for a delightful meal, we couldn’t think of a more laidback and welcoming spot to do so. It’s the kind of place you’ll want to linger at, perhaps to enjoy a few traditional Turkish Raki’s (similar to Greek ouzo) served over ice, and play a lively game of backgammon with Zeki and Ali-Fuat as the evening passes you by.

Can’t wait to go back

The neighbourhood eating house will transport you to the Aegean Coastline within moments of sitting down

Lok&amacr;nta means ‘local eating house’ in Turkish and after having the pleasure of dining there it has definitely become our new local eating house. Nestled in an area of Richmond Road that has seen many restaurants come and go, Lok&amacr;nta is doing everything right to see the spot finally has a long term resident.

Everything about Lok&amacr;nta is welcoming, from the tall outdoor fires lining the footpath and warming the outdoor diners to the friendly host that greets you within seconds of your arrival and the simple décor and artwork that transports you to the Aegean Coastline within moments of sitting down. It is however the food and the service that will keep you coming back to Lok&amacr;nta.

The menu is a mixture of small plates, flat breads and main meals all designed to be shared. The food draws inspiration from a mix of both traditional Turkish and Greek dishes with such items as kizartma, a traditional Turkish combination of fried eggplant, courgette and pepper, dressed with a traditional Greek yoghurt and cucumber tzatziki. On first look of the menu everything sounded delicious and we struggled to limit our choices however after much debate we settled on a smoky eggplant dip, fresh chargrilled octopus, fresh tuna and Aegean Island goat which came recommended as a must try.

As we waited for our food, our extremely attentive waitress was only too happy to explain the wine list which contains a broad selection of New Zealand regional wines as well as a Californian Zinfandel and Greek Agiorgitiko and Assyrtiko grape wine. Having no idea what these tasted like but curious to try, our waitress offered us a taste before committing to a bottle.

The atmosphere is Lok&amacr;nta is great. On a Friday night it was busy and bustling and felt more like a European restaurant than a neighbourhood bistro. Our food only further emphasised that feeling. Our smoky eggplant was just that, served with Turkish bread that was crispy on the outside, soft in the middle. The dip needed a little more seasoning but we still managed to devour it all. The octopus was charred to perfection, again with just the right amount of smokiness while the seared tuna with a tomato, mint and parsley salad provided a freshness burst that cut through all the smoked flavours. Our main too, failed to disappoint. The goat fell off the bone, it was succulent and tender and even though the broth it sat in was slightly over seasoned, this didn’t stop my partner wanting to savour every last bite, sucking the meat straight from the bone.

We couldn’t fit dessert in on this occasion but the baklava is becoming a legacy in it’s own right with people coming in purely to have this dish. We’ll just have to have it when we return. From our experience and the amount of people in there, Lok&amacr;nta is here to stay.

Yummy authentic rustic Mediterranean food!

“We cook what we eat and we hope others like eating it, too”

They’re big on doner kebab in Istanbul but there are plenty of options much better than Turkish food’s most famous export. The Professor and I enjoyed eating in the establishments that give this place its name: a lok&amacr;nta is a kind of workers’ cafe, where chefs fill your plate with homely hot dishes from bains-marie and you drink ayran, a slightly salty, watery yoghurt.

It’s that casual atmosphere that owner Ali Arsan is seeking to create at Lok&amacr;nta, which has just opened in the spot on Richmond Rd where others (M, Covo, then I lost track) have tried and failed. When we dropped in at the end of week two, they had the casual neighbourhood thing working a treat. The big front window was still open summer-wide to the street and tables on the footpath made it look like a place worth stopping at. I was glad we had booked.

Not having been in the place for a while, I’m not sure what they’ve done by way of a refit, though there’s a lovely floor-to-ceiling photograph of a street scene. Arsan, who was ferrying plates to busy tables, told us with a wink that the little boy in the photo is him, but in fact the people are Greek.

Forget the long-term fractious relationship [between Greece and Turkey]: Lok&amacr;nta deals in the food of the Aegean that laps against both countries, so a dish of grilled eggplant and peppers gets its Turkish name, kizartma, but the cucumber and yoghurt dressing has the Greek name tzatziki.

Arsan is behind the Tasca eateries in Newmarket and Mt Eden and there are traces of Tasca’s menu in the line-up here, which is not surprising since chef Zeki Kizilata, in a black Tasca T-shirt, is presiding in the kitchen.

“This is not an upmarket place,” Arsan told me. “We are not upmarket people. We cook what we eat and we hope others like eating it, too.”

Well, we did, a lot. From a menu that included very little of the expected (taramasalata to start; baklava to finish), we were most impressed with the smaller dishes: tender chargrilled octopus that looked and tasted like it had come from the sea, not a packet in a freezer; lahmajun, its pizza-like crust smeared with spicy meat, which you drizzle with lemon juice and wrap around tomato and rocket; the aforementioned kizartma; peppers and cabbage leaves stuffed with fragrant, slightly sweet rice.

Mains, homely to a fault, were perhaps less impressive. Beef shin, which came with chickpeas, could have done with a more cooking and the Aegean island goat was very hard to tell from lamb knuckle.

Cubes of swordfish served brochette-style were deliciously moist, but can you really call a dish “the day’s catch” and then name the species in the menu?

Desserts (a fig mousse; an olive oil cake soaked with dessert wine) were fantastic though. I suspect the locals are saying “Welcome to the neighbourhood”.